Modern mobile electronic devices (such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants, computer tablets, or the like) have become a common part of modern life. These devices increasingly provide advanced computing capabilities along with a variety of other features and options that improve the user's experience with the device. Some common examples of the features and options include cameras, Wi-Fi, SMS and MMS messaging, web browsers, voice/video calling, and GPS capabilities. In addition to these common features and options, modern electronic devices often include operating systems that can run software applications on one or more processors. The software applications can be installed (e.g., by the manufacture, mobile carrier, or by the user) on these devices to perform a variety of specific tasks and/or extend the functionality of the devices.
The software applications may use many of the hardware and other software components of the mobile devices. Moreover, much of the functionality of the software applications and other features of the mobile device are dependent on reliable network connections between the mobile device and base stations (e.g., to establish voice or video calling). Estimating network coverage is a difficult problem as network coverage can vary from location to location and may even be device dependent.
Traditionally, in order to simplify the problem of estimating network coverage, network coverage information has been primarily based on information from the towers. However, individual device experience of the coverage can vary dramatically for a number of reasons. For example, the reliability of the radio connection between the mobile devices and the base stations may be influenced by many factors, such as the distance between the mobile device and the base station, physical obstacles (e.g., buildings), interference or noise from other devices (e.g., other radio transmissions), network capacity, hardware and software configurations (e.g., of the mobile device and the base stations), and other factors. As such, getting an accurate estimate of the network coverage is a difficult problem and new techniques are needed to measure network performance and determine network coverage.
The drawings have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the relative sizes of signaling periods in the figures are not to scale, and the size of certain signaling or messaging periods may differ. Similarly, some components and/or operations may be separated into different blocks or combined into a single block for the purposes of discussion of some of the embodiments of the present technology. Moreover, while the technology is amenable to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and are described in detail below. The intention, however, is not to limit the technology to the particular embodiments described. On the contrary, the technology is intended to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the scope of the technology as defined by the appended claims.